by Kris Schnee
"Then you won't mind my going back and telling my bosses that."
"Of course not."
From the main greenhouse outside the rutabaga room came a woman's voice. "I'd mind."
Aldous said, "Marie?" His blue-haired co-worker was descending a staircase, pointing a dart gun at him.
"Think you're pretty smart, eh?" she said. "You were supposed to stay at the office and fool around, not go meddling in Genetech West's affairs." She pointed lower with the dart gun, showing its chamber full of glowing purple stuff. "Is that a root in your pocket? I can't let you have that."
Aldous looked for a good escape route and found none. The botanist was protesting but Aldous interrupted: "Even these things' maker doesn't support you, Marie. If you're a double agent for the West Division, you're hurting them too."
"That's none of your business, newbie. Now --"
Aldous snatched a bioluminescent jack o'lantern off a nearby vine and threw it at Marie, saying, "Trick or treat!"
Marie fumbled as she warded off the grinning pumpkin, and the dart gun fired at the ceiling. Aldous ran, hearing the botanist trying to restrain her. Aldous dashed past the startled bunny-girl, dodged a huge Venus fly-trap that snapped at him, and past a shelf of melons. He was nearly to the door when he tripped over a pipe.
Marie ran up behind him, saying, "Stay right there." He looked over his shoulder and saw her finish reloading. He'd just gotten to his feet and was ready to run or fight, but she aimed at his back and said, "Not another step."
"What's in those darts, anyway?"
"Killing you would be against company policy, but you can be reassigned. Really, you'd have been fine if you hadn't interfered. Now put your hands on the cantaloupes where I can see them."
Aldous reached for the fruit displayed in front of him, making no sudden moves. Great; he'd probably be "reassigned" to a zoo. This job stank. Oh, wait...
He sucked in his gut and yanked down his pants...
In a moment Marie was gasping, collapsing backward into a patch of grain stalks. A dart thudded into a table and Aldous leaped ahead, trying to recover and fix his belt. Marie coughed and cursed while the botanist called to some guards, "There! Catch her in the rye!" They weren't chasing him yet and he was happy to be ignored for the moment. He remembered something, then called out over his shoulder: "Evil Overlord's List, Rule 7: Shoot first, taunt later!"
Down one hall and another he dashed. People hustled to get out of his way. His eyes watered but he didn't smell that bad, did he? Not even the receptionist stopped him as he fled the building, jumped into his rental car, tossed bits of rutabaga onto the back seat, and found the keys.
* 10 *
The boat stopped at the East Campus entry buoy on a blazing afternoon. Aldous thanked the pilot and carefully sighted the tiny dock before stepping on. The elevator took him down while playing the bombastic tune of Holst's "Jupiter."
Dwalin and Firestar ambushed him in one of the halls, saying, "Welcome back!"
Aldous said, "Did the samples I sent arrive? Is everything dealt with?"
"Aye," said Dwalin, "and we've changed our menu a bit. Genetech South will be hearing from us."
"South?"
"The West group wasn't doing anything to us intentionally, this time. Marie was playing all three sides, tricking the West into using its menacing vegetables against the East. General Management was not pleased to learn of the South's treachery."
Firestar pulled a present out of her saddlebags. "The boss wanted you to have this."
Aldous grinned and pulled away the gold ribbon. Inside was a photo. A picture of a man flexing his muscles, wearing a shirt advertising "Galt's Gym". It was autographed in black marker: "To Alvous: Glad the job's working out for you. -- A. Gattart."
"Uh, great," said Aldous.
Dwalin shook his head at that. "This news might thrill you less than that present, but it seems I can use you for more than giving morale surveys. I'm short a good Technical Support agent, after all."
Aldous stared out from the glass walls and into the water, watching fish drift by. He'd had time in Las Vegas before his return flight, but he'd avoided the casinos for fear of being seen with his tail somehow, and being exposed as a freak. No, that wasn't the right word. He was different now, and didn't feel quite at home among the people who'd never heard of Genetech. "How long will it be," he said, "before people like Firestar can go wherever they want? Before everyone can benefit from what we do here?"
Dwalin said, "Patience, lad. Let's get a drink. A safe one."
Firestar grinned. "No drinks for me, sorry, but I'll come along. Let the researchers keep doing their thing, while we keep it all from going wrong. Soon we'll show more of our stuff to the world. We'll show them all!"
Aldous nodded, satisfied, and let the others lead him on.
* 11 *
Aldous was at lunch, setting him temporarily free from an all-day training session. After the initial excitement he'd had a relatively dull few days and was catching up on Genetech's "normal" procedures for new employee on-boarding. He'd gotten official credits at the cafeteria, for instance.
He asked the lunch lady, "What's safe to eat today?" He was still unsure what she was, after seeing her identical twin out west.
"We only sell safe food."
He wondered if she'd been reprogrammed to deny the rutabega incident. He had no desire to tick her off, since the cafeteria seemed to be the only place to eat around here, so he didn't argue. He grabbed some pizza, though he eyed it suspiciously.
There were some chairs available for people with tails, so he had one of those today. As he ate, he watched his fellow employees. Most were still apparently regular humans. His skunk features stood out but were hardly unique, given the fuzzy ears and tails that a fair number of people had on them. He had yet to actually meet anyone else who'd had the Skunk Beer.
After lunch, and after a few more hours of listening to lectures, he headed for the employee medical clinic. Finding it took him twenty minutes of wandering through the unlabeled hallways. Finally he got in, and found a dragon presiding over a hoard of tools and drugs. At least that was the impression; the doc had copper scales on his arms and clawed hands, and a pair of impressive horns behind his fin-like ears. Aldous blinked at him and said, "I haven't seen metallic scales before. If I may ask, what are you?"
The doctor laughed. He was otherwise physically human. "You're definitely a new employee. I've just been using some tricks from Nora in the Genetic Augmentation department."
"And you wear one of the disguise watches whenever you go outside?"
"Oh, I don't get out much lately. I'm happy with my research. Now, hold out your arm."
Aldous had learned better by now. "For what, exactly?"
"Basic defensive nanites. You've seen how some of our products change people, but it's time to get your current form 'locked in' so that anything else that affects you can be reverted quickly."
Aldous' tail twitched and curled. "Uh, doc, what about this thing?"
"That's a bit tricky. Have a seat." The dragon-doc offered him a stool. "I didn't have anything happen to me in my first week here, to the point that I saw all sorts of nonsense going on around me and felt a little left out. So, I got the defensive nano that was available at the time, and that meant my default form was simply human." He showed off his scaly arms. "Now I have these. It would take a few weeks at most to recover from these changes and go back to how I was, if I wanted to. With the latest defense version, you could probably undo a change like mine in under a week. The question is, how intent are you on going back to full human?"
Aldous said, "Are you saying it'd be extra-tough?"
"We'd have to do more than surgically remove the tail. As you may have noticed, there were some other changes."
He winced. "Don't I know it. The... scent came in handy though. I'm just worried about getting startled from behind."
"Bah; that's mostly a cartoon thing. You should be able to contr
ol the spraying reflex. Just make sure you don't get your tail caught in any doors! So, would you like to go through standard and nanite-based surgery to get the skunk changes fully undone, before getting the defensive injection?"
Aldous looked around the lab. Most of it was no different from a standard doctor's office, but there was a porthole looking out on the ocean and several medical charts on display for bodies with tails or wings or stranger arrangements. "How likely am I to get infected with something more dangerous before the surgery?"
A shrug. "If you're worried about that, go to your room and try not to interact with anyone. We can schedule your tail-docking for tomorrow. But really, so long as you use common sense, you probably won't be changed against your will. Not on this campus anyway."
The injection was a sort of question, then, about what he wanted as his baseline body. "I could probably change on purpose and make that into my default, huh?"
"Certainly. And it's not like any form is set in stone forever, even after the injection."
Aldous stared at the part-dragon. "Do you realize how radical a statement that is?"
The doc only smiled. "I would have thought it so, before I got hired here."
* * *
Aldous thought about the doc's offer all the way back to his room. He made sure not to touch anything the least bit suspicious along the route. He saw a room that was some kind of battle arena for gengineered monsters, but didn't go in for fear of somehow becoming one himself. He muttered, "Just hang out for a day and do paperwork."
His apartment was still plain and spartan. He'd barely unpacked what with all the recent excitement, and there were a few black and white hairs on the bedding that he'd shed. He lay down and ruffled his own tail curiously. He'd expected it to be soft and silky, but the texture was surprisingly coarse, something like a wool sweater.
He took a shower and (several towels later, what with the tail) a nap. He woke up hungry. The water outside was dark again and the clock read eleven PM. He was a little puzzled by that, thinking it was off by an hour, until he recalled that the corporate director had rebelled against Daylight Saving Time.
The cafeteria had shut down for the night, to his annoyance. Aldous laughed at himself. He was deep underwater, yet he expected there to be 24/7 food at his beck and call.
A passing scientist saw him looking forlornly at the registers and said, "Try the vending machines."
"Where are those?"
The man gave him directions to "go down two floors and just keep following the left wall", as though solving a maze. That was about as helpful as Aldous could've expected. He was starting to suspect that some of the elaborate ocean base's modules got rearranged while people weren't paying attention. Maybe the smartass dolphin mechanics were responsible.
Downstairs, he found a spherical glass room full of vending machines and a few arcade games with names like "Polybius" and "Kangaroo Kwest". He knew better than to even touch those; they could be a trap.
Unfortunately, it was pretty obvious that half the vending machines were intended for research purposes too. There was Soda Pup aplenty along with cool, refreshing OtterWater; a snack dispenser had candy bars with dinosaur-themed names (slogan: "We Spared No Expense") and another machine seemed to sell only packets of hay and alfalfa. Yet another machine was a plain black thing with a single button and no labels at all but a scratched-out sticker reading "SCP". Aldous soon thought he'd discovered a machine with perfectly normal, familiar brand names, but on closer inspection they weren't quite right.
"I don't even know," Aldous said.
"New here?" asked a sleepy guy in a shirt with loosened tie.
"Yeah, I'm in Technical Support. Will anything in here not change me, or am I better off going hungry?"
"They like to keep everyone on their toes. There's a good chance anything you buy is really a normal product repackaged with a goofy name. And if it's not, well, you can always get the effects undone."
"Always?" asked Aldous. "A lot of the employees seem to have tails or other changes."
"Mostly by choice. It shows solidarity with the company, or something. Except for the director, who of course is a perfect human specimen."
Aldous shook his head. "Is he on some kind of high-tech steroids? I saw his picture."
The man carefully chose a soda from a vending machine. "Yeah, he's been testing those, even though he also seems to always be working out while he dictates memos and makes corporate decisions." He pulled the bottled drink he'd bought out of the machine and frowned at it. "I didn't buy the RC Cola."
"That's a real brand, anyway. Guess you got lucky, if you're trying to stay normal."
The man sniffed skeptically at the cola and drank, shrugging. "So how is Technical Support? They have you on the phone a lot?"
"It's been exciting so far," Aldous said, unsure how much of his work was secret. "I've done some employee surveys and learned a little about the place."
"A positive attitude is important, so long as we're waiting to finally start putting our products on the shelves. For the general public, I mean."
Aldous said, "It's already starting. I saw a pet shop that was selling gengineered critters."
The man said, "Really! That's good news. I'm surprised Director Gattart didn't trumpet it all over yet." He yawned and took another swig. "Nice meeting you. I'll see you around."
As the employee walked away, Aldous noticed that the bottle had some extra letters on it, written in a font that blended in with the soda inside until enough of the bottle was empty to make them visible. The brand name was actually "RaCcoon Cola". Aldous started to say something, but stopped himself. It was probably a little late to warn the guy. Ah well; soon enough it'd be obvious whatever the soda did.
Aldous tried buying a soda with the same button the other guy had used. Out popped a bottle of "Foxy Red", with an ingredient list that had "Vixena" in small print after "Red Dye #63".
He figured he was going to be seeing a lot of this kind of thing, while working here.
He took the unopened bottle along toward his room, got lost despite being sure he'd gone the same way as before, and passed a laboratory with another swimming pool visible inside. Through the glass walls he could see a pair of dolphins chatting with a cybernetic mermaid. Aldous would've gone in to say hello, but any more contact with the weird tech around here might change him more. He didn't want to be stuck as a water-breather with a tail instead of legs, or something.
Although, it wouldn't be all bad to try that temporarily, would it?
Aldous watched the few employees who were still awake go about their lives in this undersea base. They all seemed to be dealing with the mad science pretty well. Whatever scary things might be going on elsewhere at Genetech, so far it looked like the company was doing more good than harm, even before going fully public with its products. He just wan't getting to participate in all of it, yet.
When he got back to his room he set the soda bottle down well away from him, looking once more at it. "Temporary, huh." Why not try becoming something else for a while, or a lot of different somethings? He could even justify it as product research and being a team player.
He tried messaging the doc on the corporate computer network to see if he was still awake. "Doc, I've got a question."
A reply came back quickly: "Yes?"
"I don't think I want to wait until tomorrow. I don't feel like a real employee yet. Can I get that injection tonight?"
"Not a lot is going to happen between now and tomorrow evening."
Aldous wrote, "You never know around here, right?"
"Ha. That's true enough. Come on over to the lab and I'll get you fixed up."
Aldous was about to cut the connection and walk over there, when an idea occurred to him. "So long as we're going to lock in my current form, do you think you could make my, uh, my tail fur softer?"
The doc didn't answer for a while, leaving Aldous to sit there blushing. It certainly wasn't a normal thing to ask of a d
octor.
Finally the doc answered, "That's easy; I've got just the thing. Can even fix that receeding hairline on your head too, if you don't mind getting stripes up there."
Aldous grinned. "You know what? Let's do that." He could have something distinctive to be his new "home" body, and experiment with other changes from there. "I'll be right over."
On his way out the door to go meet the doc again, Aldous grinned at the foxy soda on his desk. "I'll save this one for the weekend, maybe."
There was going to be a lot of interesting work, and "work", ahead at Genetech.
Author's Note
Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this collection, please consider rating it on Amazon or Goodreads!
Another Genetech story, "Safari Swap", appears in "Perspective Flip". And of course, I've done some longer, more serious stories.
About the Author
Kris Schnee has been a parrot trainer, an MIT graduate, a zoo intern, a lawyer, a game designer, and most recently a software developer. He lives in Florida.
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The Crafter Series
Crafter's Passion
Crafter's Heart
The Thousand Tales Series
Thousand Tales: How We Won the Game
2040: Reconnection
The Digital Coyote
Thousand Tales: Extra Lives
Thousand Tales: Learning To Fly
Fairwind's Fortune
Liberation Game
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